Midnight
by Miss Becky
Summary: En route to Korriban, BaoDur finds common ground with an unexpected companion.


Midnight

Disclaimer: These characters are the property of LucasArts and Obsidian

Summary: En route to Korriban, Bao-Dur finds common ground with an unusual companion.

Note: I haven't read too many stories where the Exile is Dark Side. I find it rather touching that some of your companions try to steer you back to the Light once you start becoming all Sith-ly. This story is a result of wondering what your non-DS companions think of the Exile as she falls further into darkness.

* * *

Midnight on board the _Ebon Hawk_, and Bao-Dur can't sleep.

He prowls the starship, looking for something in need of repair. He wants a task, any task. Anything to occupy his mind, so he is not left alone with his thoughts.

Around him the ship is quiet. The Miraluka sleeps. Kreia is locked away in her solitude, either meditating or sleeping. The Mandalorian dozes on the couch, and the Wookiee has finally stopped pacing and fallen asleep. The droids are powered down for the night – even T-3 has temporarily ceased his endless work on the hyperdrive.

The only sounds Bao-Dur can hear come from her room. The General. The Exile. She does not sleep alone anymore. And right now she is not asleep.

Her laughter drifts through the halls. It is hard and cold, that laughter. Full of shadows.

"Can't sleep?"

Bao-Dur starts with fright. He did not hear the footsteps come up behind him. He turns around. "No. What about you?"

The Disciple frowns. "My dreams are restless," he says. "They keep me awake." He glances toward the General's room, then quickly looks away.

Bao-Dur looks at the soldier. In all the time the man has been on board the ship, he has hardly strayed from his studies in the medical bay. It is something of a surprise to realize the Disciple is utterly miserable.

As miserable, perhaps, as Bao-Dur feels.

The General's laughter floats out into the hall again. Silvery and deceptive, delighting in cruelty. This time a man laughs with her.

"He was a decent man when I first met him," Bao-Dur says. He is not sure why he is talking to the Disciple like this. Maybe it is that sadness in the soldier's eyes. "He asked me once if I thought he and the General could ever have a chance."

The Disciple stares at him. "She has corrupted Atton," he says.

"I tried to warn her," Bao-Dur says. "I told her that there was still a chance for her, for redemption. But then we went to Nar Shaddaa, and everything changed. I knew it the moment they set foot on board. She made Atton into a Sith, the same as she is."

"Do not say that word!" the Disciple hisses. He glances around, perhaps expecting the General to burst forth from her room and strike him down with a storm of lightning. Or maybe it is Kreia he fears.

"I speak only the truth," Bao-Dur says sadly. "And you know I am right."

It pains him to think of it. When he had first known the General, she was tough, but fair. She had nothing but contempt for the Jedi Order she had left behind, but neither had she embraced the Dark Side. She had led them against the Mandalorians, not for the glory of killing, but to hold back that relentless tide.

The ten years that stand between Malachor and this moment must have wounded her more deeply than he had thought. Something in her lonely exile had broken her, and made her vulnerable to the Dark Side. Her descent into darkness had surely begun before he had encountered her again on Telos, but since then it has been accelerated, taking her swiftly into impenetrable darkness. On nights like this, when he cannot sleep, Bao-Dur wonders if he could have saved her. If he has failed her for the last time.

"Is it too late for her?" The Disciple stares at her closed door. His hands are clenched into fists at his side.

"I do not know," Bao-Dur says. "I hope not."

In his heart, however, he knows the truth. Since Telos she has not once asked for his company. She returned from the Enclave on Dantooine with the Disciple in tow, but she has not spoken to the soldier since he stepped on board the _Ebon Hawk._ She wants nothing to do with either of them, and Bao-Dur knows why. They cannot be corrupted, like Atton was. They are not inherently dark, like the seer Visas. They cannot teach her, like Kreia does. They do not encourage cruelty and battle, like Mandalore and the droids.

To the General, he and the Disciple are next to useless. She does not need them. Mandalore is more a soldier than the Disciple, and she has the ability to repair anything on the ship that might break down. With no reason to keep them around, he wonders if she will put them off the ship at Korriban, and abandon them to the wastelands of that forsaken planet. Or maybe she will grow bored with them and space them.

"What will become of us?" asks the Disciple, almost reading his thoughts. He pauses and swallows hard. "She tried once to turn me onto her path, on Dantooine. She killed an innocent merchant. He was stealing droid parts and then selling them back to his customers, but he had a good reason. But she would not listen to him. She killed him, and I fought beside her, but afterward I was horrified at myself, at my actions. She tried to tell me I had done the right thing, but I did not believe her." He looked at Bao-Dur. "I fear what will happen if she grows tired of trying to make us into her pawns."

Bao-Dur has no answer for this. He knows he is fortunate that the General has never tried to bring him down with her. Of them all, only Atton has succumbed to the Dark Side, once she unlocked the potential within him. The pilot has grown strong in the Force, and Bao-Dur has not been blind to the pride in the General's eyes when she looks upon her new apprentice.

And she would have done the same to him, had he allowed it. The very idea makes his skin crawl.

"I know it is not much," the Disciple says, "but I offer you my hand, Bao-Dur. If the worst should happen, I will stand beside you."

Against the General. Bao-Dur closes his eyes. Memories of Malachor swim before him, forcing him to remember her the way she was, before the Dark Side had rotted away her beauty and stolen her soul. Before she had become a monster.

He looks at the Disciple. "I hope it does not come to that," he said. He holds out his hand. "But if it does, I will stand with you." He knows if things should come to battle, he and the Disciple will be dead within instants. The General is too powerful now; and even should they somehow manage to stop her, they would have to deal with Atton next.

The Disciple clasps his hand. "And if we can save her?" He does not finish the question.

Bao-Dur does not try to answer. There is no hope of saving her, not any more. And they both know it.

All that is left of his brave General is the Sith Lord laughing behind that closed door.

END


End file.
